Offices and open workspaces

The acoustic problem

In an open-plan office the problem is rarely loudness — it is that the conversation two desks away remains intelligible. Glass, exposed concrete and hard floors carry speech a long way, and people are interrupted continuously.

Our approach

We take the ceiling to Class A absorption to cut horizontal speech propagation, then add vertical surfaces between work islands. The goal is not a dead room but a balanced one, where speech stops being intelligible after four or five metres.